The Wind in the Williows
by jm-oc-ja
Summary: One shot. Mac runs into Sloan in the make-up room, both trying to escape the world for a few moments. Sloan opens up about a childhood experience that left her a bit scared. Mac listens to Sloan and helps her out. Sloan/Mac friendship, or a little bit more if you look hard enough.


Mac walked into the make-up room, growling as the door shut, running her hands through her shoulder length hair. She didn't notice Sloan sitting on the floor on the far side of the room, and jumped when the younger woman spoke.

"Will driving you up a wall again?" Sloan asked, Mac shook her head chuckling as she walked over to the woman, resting her back against the wall and sliding down it to join the woman on the floor.

"Not really, just the whole Jerry thing." Mac said resting her head on Sloan's shoulder. "Why are you hiding away in here?" She asked and felt Sloan shrug. That's when Mac noticed a book in her lap, she picked it up and flipped it over and over in her hands. It was the children's book The Wind in the Willows.

"I never read it." Sloan admitted.

"It's pretty well worn for never have been read."

"I've had it since I was seven. It was the year my parent's switched me from public to private school." Sloan looked over at Mac. "I had tested off the charts, even then, so I got placed into a private school where my parent's felt I would be challenged more. My mother had just given me the book when I started there, thinking I would enjoy it. Our class had a set time every day for free reading. DEAR time they called it."

"Drop everything and read." Mac said and Sloan smiled nodding.

"Exactly. Well I pulled the book out the day my mother gave it to me, and started reading it. Just a few minutes later my teacher noticed I was reading a book 'far over my reading level'." Sloan used air quotes, spitting the words out like they burned her tongue just to say them. "We were a mixed class you see, first grade, second and third all together. The woman grabbed the book from me and said that there was no way I could read something so above my level." Sloan stopped taking a deep breath, Mac put her hand on Sloan's knee, knowing how upset the woman was. Mac was growing used to her role as Sloan's rock to the world now, she didn't mind. The young woman was a rock of Mac's in the world now too, Mac was glad to have someone like Sloan standing beside her holding her hand day in and day out. "She gave me one of those Henry and Mudge books, telling me I could pick up my book when it was time to leave. I asked her to give me my book back, that my mother had given it to me just that morning. She told me only good kids get their things back. I was upset, I was only a kid."

"I know, she never should have."

"So I asked her again, and she wrote me up and sent me to the office for an in school suspension." Mac shook her head at the story, she gently swiped the single tear falling from Sloan's eye. "That afternoon my mom came in and picked me up, upset that I was in trouble. The teacher explained to my mother what happened, my mother was furious, she pulled me out of the school right then and there and placed me back in public schools."

"Your mother was smart, she really was trying to just insure you got the best you could." Mac said and Sloan nodded.

"The public school never said anything about what I was reading ever, but I kept telling my parents I didn't know how to read. For years I went about it, finally my parents found a tutor to help me. He started with the basics and worked up with me, I completed his course in three weeks when it was supposed to take fifteen. He sat me down and asked me why I felt I couldn't read, so I told him that my teachers told me so. He sat me down and told me I would run into people that will always doubt my abilities, and how smart I was but that I was never to ever let tell me I wasn't smart enough or good enough again. That I should never believe them. That I would amount to great things."

"He was a very smart man it seems like." Mac grinned and Sloan nodded.

"A very smart man, he introduced me to you." Sloan said and Mac sat there looking at her for a few moments before it clicked.

"Will."

"Yes."

"I didn't know Will tutored. Wait! Why didn't you tell me you met Will as a kid?" Mac said fringing hurt, the smile on her face proved her wrong.

"I didn't put it together till just now, he walked by my desk and tapped the book asking me if I ever got the nerve up to read it, he winked and walked away."

"And you haven't." Sloan shook her head.

"No, I don't even know why, it's just a children's book." Sloan said and Mac chuckled. Taking the book in her hands she opened in gently and flipped to the first page, Sloan fell further into her embrace.

"Chapter one." Mac started. "The Mole had been working very hard all morning…"


End file.
